


Saluting to Your Lips

by rainingover



Category: Monsta X (Band), 걸어 | All in - Monsta X (Music Video)
Genre: Alien Flora & Fauna, Back Pain, Dystopia, Friendship, Gen, Guns, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Optimism, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Conflict, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingover/pseuds/rainingover
Summary: “How do we even know we can trust each other?” Hoseok asks. He doesn’t hide his fear well. He never has.No one has an answer for him at the time.





	Saluting to Your Lips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quettaser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quettaser/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I couldn't resist writing for your All In prompt, I hope you enjoy it :).

 

Jooheon leans back against the wall of the old hospital and beckons Hyunwoo to come over when he spots him. “Are we playing cards this week?” He asks.

Hyunwoo nods. “Yeah. Yeah, probably,” he says, but Jooheon knows there’s no probably about it. They’ll play because there’s nothing else to do round here anymore. “Are you in?”

“When am I not?” Jooheon stands up a little straighter, juts out his chin. “I’m all in, every game.” 

Hyunwoo smiles and slaps him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he says and then turns to Kihyun. “What about you?” 

Kihyun’s face is blank. “What’s the point? There’s nothing to play  _for_. We barely have money for food. Playing cards for what little we have left is stupid.”

“Don’t come then.” Jooheon shrugs. “Or just come after, for the ceremony.”

“You know I’ll be there.” Kihyun swings his heels back against the wall he sits on and relishes in the thud of his feet against the brick. He likes to remember that there are still some concrete things left in this world: some buildings still standing, some structures doing their job. He likes to be useful, and he likes useful things.

He doesn’t feel very useful now.

Hyunwoo goes to slap him on the shoulder too, but rethinks his decision - pulls his arm back at the last moment, so that it drops awkwardly between them. “Good man,” he says, and digs his hands straight into his pockets.

Kihyun steadies himself on his crutches before he gets down off the wall, and tries not to wince at the pain in his lower back. 

 

\--

 

Hyungwon tries not to flinch when Minhyuk practically pokes his eye out. He is good at this - he learnt from his mother - but he can be a little overeager. 

“Can you see out of that eye at all?” Minhyuk asks as he soaks the cotton rag in alcohol. The smell is so sharp, so medicinal, that Hyungwon has to hold his breath when Minhyuk works at cleaning the cut above his eyebrow. 

“A little. It hurts.” Hyungwon bats his hand away. “It's clean, leave it now.”

Minhyuk ignores him. “I need to finish what I started,” he mutters and squeezes the tube of antiseptic cream onto his finger. 

Minhyuk smooths the cream above Hyungwon’s eye as gently as he can, and it's not gentle enough, but Hyungwon doesn’t say anything.

“You know Jooheon is getting hold of some stolen military stuff,” Minhyuk says as he works. “Firearms, I heard.”

Hyungwon sucks in a breath. “What? From where?”

Minhyuk shrugs and sits back. “I think he’s traded with of the soldiers for some of the flowers we have. I’m going to make sure I get hold of something. Maybe pay your father a visit, scare him a little.” He busies himself with screwing the lid back on the bottles next to him, doesn't look at Hyungwon.

“No,” Hyungwon replies. He stares until Minhyuk can’t avoid his gaze any longer. “ _Minhyuk_.”

“But--”

“ _No_.” Hyungwon holds onto his wrist tightly. “That would be like... Like taking a knife to a gunfight.”

“But it would be a  _gun_.”

“You know what I mean, Minhyuk. He has the weight of the military on his side. He’s the law now.” He drops Minhyuk’s wrist and smiles. “And knowing you, you’ll end up shooting your foot off or something.”

Minhyuk scoffs. “You think so highly of me.”

“It’s just... I care.” Hyungwon slides a hand up Minhyuk’s thigh and squeezes his leg at the top for effect. “I care about you.”

“I know you do.” Minhyuk slips his fingers through Hyungwon’s and holds his hand. His hand is soft from the antiseptic cream. “But I’m the one tending to  _your_  wounds.”

 

\--

 

They’d always known each other, the seven of them grew up in the same neighbourhood, visited the same places, schooled in the same buildings. It didn't mean much back then - they were friends to varying degrees.

Hyungwon always meant a lot to Minhyuk. Changkyun meant a lot to Jooheon and to Kihyun, but Kihyun didn’t even factor on Jooheon’s radar. Hoseok came by way of Hyunwoo, who had played with Kihyun in the neighbourhood as a kid. Hyungwon fought Kihyun in the playground, and Hyunwoo was too old to have met Changkyun as a kid. They weren't important to each other because they didn't have to be.

It wasn’t until the military coup, until the village was under strict control and the guns were everywhere, in their faces, day in and day out, that they had realised the importance of each other.

“We resist or we become like them,” Jooheon had said to Changkyun in a hushed whisper as they’d watched the soldiers marching past the old school building. Changkyun hadn’t looked away from the scene until the last of the soldier’s backs had disappeared out of sight. 

Then he’d run as fast as he knew how to all the way to Kihyun’s home, or what was now left of it, and he’d taken Kihyun’s hands in his and told him the same.

Kihyun had slipped Hyunwoo the co-ordinates for Jooheon’s makeshift camp later that week, and then Hoseok and Minhyuk and Hyungwon had joined them too.

Every story has a beginning. 

\--

 

“How  _do_  we resist? How do we resist the military? The new laws? How do we know we can make any difference to this place at all?” Clenched fists and scared eyes accompany the questions. Jooheon hides his own nerves behind a mask he calls defiance.

“We take it slow.” Jooheon pretends that he is in control, that he has a plan, but he doesn’t.

When he thinks back to that first night, he remembers knowing nothing at all. But he learns more every day and he has always been great at bullshitting, so the words fall from his mouth with surprising ease. “We plan, meticulously,” he says. “We trust each other and no one else. Got it?”

“How do we even  _know_ we can trust each other?” Hoseok asks. He doesn’t hide his fear well. He never has. 

No one has an answer for him at the time.

But then comes the drugs.

The drugs - the brew from the flowers that bloom only in the shadow of the orb - they come, and  _then_ the seven of them are bonded completely, or, at least, they’re fucked up together, and that pretty much counts for the same thing. 

 

\--

 

Minhyuk doesn’t get a gun to himself.

“We’re a team. We will arm ourselves when the time comes,” Hyunwoo points out. 

“The time for what?” Minhyuk asks, kicks at the dirt with his toe. It’s been time to do something about that ignorant bastard for  _years_. 

No one gives him an answer, or if they do, he isn’t listening because he doesn’t care. He’ll find another way to get rid of Hyungwon’s father, there are always ways. He thinks about them a lot.

Jooheon keeps the guns, keeps them stashed away somewhere in the back of the old hospital. Hyunwoo refuses to go in there to help, says it reminds him of his grandfather too much to even look at the building. Hoseok holds his hand and stands with him on the peripheral of the scene. 

Minhyuk claims he likes the hospital, that he always used to feel safe there. 

“Wasn’t your mom a nurse?” Changkyun helps to clear out space in the crumbling walls behind the old wards. “When she could work?”

“Yeah, she was.” He smiles. “That’ll be why I like it so much. You can still smell the cleanliness in the air.”

Chankyun pulls a face at him and says, “No, you can’t.”

Minhyuk shushes him. 

Hyungwon walks through the empty hallways silently, in a dream. His eye has healed, this time, and his father has forgotten about him and his sins and his shame, at least for a while. 

He likes being forgotten. He’d like to forget too.

 

\--

 

Hoseok undresses Kihyun quickly, but he takes forever to put his clothes back on, like some reverse strip-tease that Kihyun will never understand. 

“I know I’m handsome, but fuck it’s cold out here. Let me do it.” He sighs, pulling his sweater on over his head and scowling at Hoseok’s amused expression. Why they still fuck in the woods, Kihyun doesn't know. Summer has ended and it's too cold, really, but it's been their thing for a while. Kihyun loves Changkyun, he knows that for sure, but he also loves Hoseok. And maybe he loves the others too. Maybe he's just too high to know the difference between any feelings these days.

“You know, one day you’re going to want to start fucking someone else.” He runs a hand through his hair. “And they won't want your freezing hands on them.”

“You’re mean.” Hoseok watches Kihyun carefully, and Kihyun knows Hoseok is worrying about him. But he doesn’t need to be worried about, his health is the least of their worries.

“Yeah. I am.” He breathes rings of smoke out into the frosty air. “And I’m  _cold_. I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

Hoseok fakes a laugh. “Have I lost my magic touch?”

“No, you’re just losing your mind. We all are. What are we doing, Hoseok, becoming our own army?” He gives up on lacing up his sneakers, pushes himself up with a scowl. “Who are we kidding with all of this? We can’t win.”

“Don’t let the others hear you say that,” Hoseok whispers.

“I don’t care what they hear,” Kihyun says. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Yours,  _ours_. We’re in this together, all seven of us.”

Kihyun closes his eyes and says, “Seven people can’t take on the world, Hoseok.” 

He doesn’t look back as he walks away, but still, he’s there at the camp for the ceremony the next night and Changkyun squeezes his hand and paints his face with yellow and blue, and Kihyun remembers why he sticks around even if he’s lost faith in anything at all.

 

\--

 

Jooheon lights the fire, puts out the fire, lives his entire fucking life around that firepit it seems.

Changkyun is there most of the time, except for when he’s following Kihyun around with that expression Jooheon hasn’t quite yet figured out. He twirls a sprig of freshly picked Blue between his thumb and forefinger as he sits, talks about his and Hoseok's recent run in with the military. 

Jooheon looks at him, his eyes set on the flower as he talks. It glows in the darkness, a bright light, a beacon. The Blue, they call it. The first time Jooheon had seen one of the flowers wasn’t long after the orb had first been spotted and he remembers being mesmerised. It was so exciting, back then, because the more the orb appeared in the sky, the more of the flowers that bloomed underneath it. 

Jooheon can’t remember why they gave the flowers such a basic name - they aren't even blue, not really, they're more an indigo, quite purple in some lights, but the name had stuck. It's easier, now, to keep new things simple, when old things - religion, family, community, love - are all so complicated. 

Changkyun had been against brewing it at first, had warmed Jooheon that  _anything_  could happen, but Jooheon had wanted to feel something, so he’d done it anyway - drinking the steaming liquid in one long gulp, his hands trembling around the beaker. 

And he hadn’t died. In fact, he’d felt amazing. Like he could do anything he fucking pleased. Like they could resist the oppression, like they could take things back, just the seven of them.

They are working towards it, they  _are_ , but they’re also getting by. And getting by involves being high as often as possible, if only to pretend everything's okay. They salute each other and the flowers and the future, and they kiss each other under the strange orb in the sky that no one really understands. It's surprisingly easy to pretend you're in control when you're actually spiralling.

“Maybe it would be kinder just to burn this whole place to the ground,” Changkyun says and stops twirling the flower.

Jooheon snatches the it from changkyun’s grip and drops it into the beaker. “Burning down the entire village would be kinder to who, exactly?” He asks.

“Everyone.” Changkyun shrugs.

Jooheon shakes his head. “No fires. Except this one.”

“No fires.” Changkyun sighs. “Then what?”

“Be patient.”

“Patience wears thin. Patience is no longer a virtue. Haven’t you read the scriptures? Pray now, die now, it’s all so instant these days.” He’s high, Jooheon can tell. He’s always high. 

“Go and talk this philosophical shit with Kihyun and leave me alone.” Jooheon pushes at Changkyun’s shoulder, but Changkyun doesn't budge. 

 

\--

 

When the orb appeared, the new power declared it was a sign that they were backed by a higher power. That the villages should be burnt, that the people should obey the men with the guns who marched the streets every day. That it justified everything: the pain, the beatings, the hate.

Hyunwoo thinks it’s just a coincidence. Jooheon thinks it’s a sign  _against_ the oppression. Minhyuk just gets high and waves at it with big open arms and says, “I bet it’s as gay as fuck, I hope so. I hope it comes down one day and pulverises Mr Chae for his homophobic bullshit.”

Hyungwon says, “Maybe it’s just lost. Maybe it’s stuck here and it doesn’t want to be.”

“Like we are?” Kihyun smiles and sits down next to him. They didn’t get along before, play fought in the playground when they were small, kicked and pushed and traded insults. Now they’re fighting on the same side, for the same thing, and Kihyun thinks they’re more and more alike every day. 

“Yeah.” Hyungwon smiles back. “Like we are.”

“I don’t want them to go,” Changkyun lies down in the grass and watches the ripples of the orb as it moves in the sky above their heads. “The flowers might go too and then what will we do?”

“There were other ways to get high before the oppression.” Minhyuk grins. “Don’t you remember?” 

“I’m too high to remember anything.” Changkyun motions for Minhyuk to lie down too, and they roll in the grass and laugh over nothing, lilac shadows on their faces.

 

\--

 

When the Winter comes, the orb isn’t seen for a long time. The Blue die off slowly, and then they don’t come back at all the next Spring. 

Jooheon’s stash of dried flowers prolongs the hope for a little while, but even that can’t last, and then the hope dies too. But maybe it was never hope at all. Maybe it was just intimacy disguised as a revolution all along.

“There’s still a chance that they can be overturned,” Hyunwoo says, as he and Jooheon retrieve the guns from the old hospital. He can go inside now if he closes his eyes as he walks past the ward his grandfather waited for the surgery that he didn’t get. “If we really focus our efforts.”

“Well, being sober might help with that,” Jooheon says, which is a bit rich coming from him, he knows it. “Could you tell that I was making it all up in the beginning?” He watches Hyunwoo out of the corner of his eye. 

“You might have been making it up,” Hyunwoo replies, careful with his words, “But you were right. We can still take back something. Even if it’s just what’s left of this village. Even if it’s just half of what’s left. We still have the most important thing.”

“These crap old firearms?”

Hyunwoo shakes his head. “Each other.”

 

\--

 

When the orb finally returns to the skies, and the flowers begin to bloom in its shadow again, Hyungwon’s father has gone for good.

“See, you didn’t need a gun after all,” Hyungwon points out as Minhyuk treads into the clearing. "He left us alone."

Minhyuk walks ahead. He is glad Hyungwon can’t see his face. He isn’t sure what Hyungwon would say - or do - if he knew that Changkyun’s penchant for starting fires and Minhyuk’s penchant for justice was the real reason that his father left town.

Still, he’d do it again in a heartbeat. He’d do anything for Hyungwon, and deep down Hyungwon appreciates that more than he’s ever found the words to say. Maybe he'd do anything for Minhyuk, too, should he need to one day. 

“I swear they’re bluer than they were before,” Hoseok murmurs, careful to avoid the newly opened flowers under foot.

“They’re just as potent, that’s for sure,” Changkyun says with a grin, and Minhyuk laughs in agreement.

And it’s strange, Minhyuk thinks, to be laughing - to be _happy_  - when they’re carrying weapons, when they’re on the edge of a revolution, when nothing is certain and everything is crumbling down around them. 

But they are.

 

 


End file.
